Starting September 1, Georgia Southern will be requiring all students currently enrolled to complete two mandatory online training courses, which will educate students with issues regarding sexual assault and alcohol awareness, and must be completed by October 26.

The sexual assault course, Haven, concerns sexual assault awareness and prevention. According to its website, Haven “addresses the critical issues of sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking, which impact countless college students across the country.” Haven was made a federal mandate by the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act, which requires students to learn about sexual violence.

The alcohol course, AlcoholEdu, will focus on the effects of alcohol and to help students make better decisions regarding drinking habits. According to its website, “A federally funded, 30-campus randomized control trial found that AlcoholEdu reduces high-risk drinking and alcohol-related harms among college students.”

Kerry Greenstein, Associate Dean of Students, spoke about the content students can expect to encounter while taking the courses. “It should take between 30 minutes and an hour to complete each course,” says Greenstein. “There’s the quiz, there’s the videos, it’s almost like a PowerPoint presentation that will take you through with the information. There will also be a degree interactivity in some portions of the programs. There’s a few spots that are directed to you,” Greenstein stated. “It’ll ask you to check the boxes that are appropriate to you or what do you think, there will be those options.”

Students currently enrolled will only have to take each course once. According to Greenstein, “Once we get it to every student now, then there will be measures to take with just the incoming students.”

While a deadline has been set, no consequence has been decided on as of yet. “We’re still working through some of the details,” says Greenstein. “At this point I can’t give you the specifics, but [the deadline] is right around registration time…could it be tied to registration? It’s possible…the point is students need to take it to make sure they don’t have any future problems.”